Leo Bensemann
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1912, d.1986
Rita Angus
- 1938
- Pencil on paper
- Purchased 2014
- 394 x 300mm
- 2014/063
Location: W A Sutton Gallery
Tags: artists (visual artists), monochrome, painters (artists), people (agents), portraits, profiles (figures), women (female humans)
Leo Bensemann made this portrait when he and Rita Angus were neighbours. The friends occupied adjacent studio flats in a Cambridge Terrace house here in Ōtautahi Christchurch owned by the painter Sydney Lough Thompson, Bensemann sharing his with Lawrence Baigent. They all used the same kitchen and bathroom, and often entertained together. As artists, it was a creative and stimulating environment. “Both our studio doors were thrown open”, Baigent recalled. “Doors were never locked or shut.” Bensemann and Angus frequently made portraits of each other – some flamboyant, others more introspective, like this one. They are fascinating records of two strong personalities and their complex friendship.
(Dear Shurrie: Francis Shurrock and his contemporaries, 8 March – 13 July 2025)
Exhibition History
Related reading: A Room of One’s Own
Notes
Rita Angus by Leo Bensemann
This article first appeared in The Press as 'Viewing Rita Angus with Leo's eyes' on 26 May 2015
Notes
Irises by Rita Angus
This article first appeared as 'The meticulous small world of Rita Angus' in The Press on 9 December 2014.
Notes
Raise your glass (house)
Huge congratulations to Zina Swanson who has just been announced as the Francis Hodgkins Fellow for 2013.
Notes
People in glasshouses
A few days ago, there were lots of little bits of glass and metal strewn (in a highly systematic way) across the floor of our NG gallery space.
Notes
Zipp by Frances Hodgkins
‘I can't tell you the horror of the Blackout and the effects on your nerves - the want of ventilation at night is very tiring - perhaps the nastiest part of it all.' - Frances Hodgkins in a letter to her brother, William.
Collection
Zina Swanson Untitled
Zina Swanson’s precise, yet poetic painted drawings call attention to the delicacy and vulnerability of nature. Plant matter, insects and other tiny objects she collected over several years take fresh life in brushstrokes that range from feathery to forensically precise. Zina’s interest in her personal – and our human – relationship with the natural world led her to imagine a strange form of cross-species rehabilitation, where wilting forms are supported, a cutting grows the feet of a bird and processed timber receives new prosthetic roots. Her latest painting recounts an early foray into collecting, when she salvaged a discarded stick so large it had to be cut into three and reassembled in her studio. In an associated poem, she wrote: Making them part of my life, by making them part of my paintings Making a special shelf for them in my studio The collection keeps growing.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )
Collection
Zina Swanson Untitled
Zina Swanson’s precise, yet poetic painted drawings call attention to the delicacy and vulnerability of nature. Plant matter, insects and other tiny objects she collected over several years take fresh life in brushstrokes that range from feathery to forensically precise. Zina’s interest in her personal – and our human – relationship with the natural world led her to imagine a strange form of cross-species rehabilitation, where wilting forms are supported, a cutting grows the feet of a bird and processed timber receives new prosthetic roots. Her latest painting recounts an early foray into collecting, when she salvaged a discarded stick so large it had to be cut into three and reassembled in her studio. In an associated poem, she wrote: Making them part of my life, by making them part of my paintings Making a special shelf for them in my studio The collection keeps growing.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)